Yoshinori Mogi, a Tokyo metropolitan assembly member from the Conservative Party of Japan (Sanseito), has resigned from the party's board after saying at a street speech that cervical cancer is "part of a cold," party leader Sohei Kamiya announced on November 4. Lower house member Masamune Wada has taken the board seat.
Mogi made the remark on October 28 while campaigning for a Tokyo assembly by-election in Chiyoda Ward. "Whether it's the coronavirus, cervical cancer or the RS vaccine, it's all just part of a cold," he said, according to the account given by the party. "Our immune antibodies are made because of it, and through natural immunity we become bodies that are strong against illness."
Cervical cancer is caused mainly by persistent infection with certain types of human papillomavirus (HPV), and vaccination against HPV is used in Japan and elsewhere to prevent it.
Kamiya told reporters that Mogi had meant to argue people should not rely on medicines, and rejected that reading of the science. "I cannot understand it that way at all," he said. "He spread extremely wrong information and made people suffering from illness feel uncomfortable, and he is reflecting on that." Kamiya added that the party would apologize and work to prevent a repeat.
On the party's position on vaccines, Kamiya said it does not regard all of them as bad. "We will verify how to respond while looking at the state of the data, including health damage," he said.